TRANSLATION
Portrait of a nation
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`The writer's main aim was to communicate his perceptions of the social contradictions of Poland ...'
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TRANSLATION of fiction has, perhaps, never had it this good. It's been raining translation some years now in this part of the world! It is a case of yaam petra inbam peruga ivvai-yyagam — let me share with a larger audience the joy I found in the vernacular work.
Uphill task
It is an uphill task capturing the true spirit of the original, not missing out on the nuances and finer points of the dialect and the local idiom, or for that matter, the tenor and authentic flavour of the literary work in question. This time round, after going through K.V. Ramanathan's translation of Indira Parthasarathy's Yesuvin Thozhargal, I went through the Tamil original written about 20 years ago. Parthasarathy, who received the Sahitya Akademy award for his novel Kurudhipunal in 1977, won the Rangammal award instituted by the late Kasturi Srinivasan for Yesuvin Thozhargal.
He had spent the best part of over five years in the early 1980s in Warsaw and wrote the novel on his return. Hence, the book reflects the political situation of the erstwhile socialist country of Poland. It was first serialised in Dinamani Kadhir. Parthasarathy's first-hand experience of life in Poland during the heady days of Lech Walesa and Solidarity elicited a big welcome from the Tamil reading populace to his account of it through the novel. The novelist makes it clear that this is no travelogue but a piece of fiction, though he has not taken liberty with the historical events. The Soviet Empire is now dead and Warsaw is sure to be a whole sight different today from then. According to him, Poland has suffered much in decades past and was even sought to be wiped off the map of Europe. And yet, if the idea of a Polish nation continued to exist in the minds of the Poles, it was because of their strong Catholic faith and pride in Polish language.
The story revolves around a young Indian diplomat Naren, and Asha, daughter of an Indian intellectual settled in Warsaw, is half Polish. The intellectual is fondly referred to by his initials TNT, which actually stand for Tirumalai Narasimhachari Tatachari! TNT is obviously an ex-revolutionary as the acronym proclaims. Asha goes looking for her roots in rural Tamil Nadu and finds that people cut into conversation without so much as a by-your-leave; getting into a bus or train was always a test of Darwin's theory that the fittest alone could survive. The picture is not hugely different 20 years later! Anna and Pyotr, an estranged Polish couple whom the Professor helps reunite, the Indian Ambassador and the artist Turski and his double and their preoccupation, if one may dub it so, with butterflies — are the other characters well-delineated with broad brush strokes.
Who are the friends of Jesus the title refers to? It is the people of Poland because of the link between Jesus and Marx brought about by compulsions of history. While the Poles await the Second Coming of Jesus, as do all Christians, Indian Hindus wait for an avatar of god in every age. Though the opening chapter of the novel holds out a lot of promise and sparkles with wit, the rest of the book is way too stark for a work of fiction and the plot and story are not fleshed out for great pleasure to be derived from reading it. The writer's main aim was to communicate his experiences and perceptions of the social and political contradictions of Poland vis-à-vis India and in that he has succeeded.
There is high sophistication in the narrative style as the tale unfolds, with the Professor alternating in the first person as protagonist and in the third person as the author of the novel.
Faithful to the original
K.V. Ramanathan had earlier rendered into English many of the novelist's short stories and one of his plays wherein he had sought to strike a balance between too literal a translation and a total rewrite job. Comrades of Jesus was a different proposition because it is replete with dialogue which was supposedly conducted in English in the first place as the locale is Poland. In effect, he was retranslating into English what Parthasarathy had written. The novelist has described KVR's translation as easy-flowing, functional and of a natural style. A thoroughgoing job, with attention paid to detail, and totally faithful to the original, the English translation makes for a good read.
Comrades of Jesus, Indira Parthasarathy, translated by K.V.Ramanathan, Rupa & Co., p.xxx, Rs. 195.
SELINE AUGUSTINE
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